Category Archives: Nokia

I’ve released the free Daily Wallpaper for Nokia N9 a couple of months ago. Since that time it enjoyed nearly nine thousands of downloads (quite a number for this platform) and was keeping me personally entertained. Once an hour (or once a day or once a month) it is downloading the fresh cool wallpaper from flickr and every time I unlock the phone I can enjoy a new interesting photo.

Since the moment of release, the most popular request (sometimes even causing the low rating in the Nokia Store) was not to rotate the too wide images, but to cut the central part out of it. I do love the rotation, but my opinion is totally irrelevant compared to the customers. So since yesterday, version 1.1 knows how to do both rotation and cutting. Cutting is the default mode. Enjoy and, please, submit more requests or vote on the existing ones.

The Symbian Foundation announced the introduction of a new application development solution promising any web developer the tools to create mobile software by applying their existing HTML, CSS and JavaScript expertise. According to Symbian, the ne…

Nokia has submitted its Symbian^4 user interface proposal to the Symbian Foundation, proposing to simplify the S60 user experience by means of renewed layouts, context menu support for list items, guidelines for autosaving content and minimizing user prompts, among other upgrades. “This proposal improves the competitiveness of the Foundation Platform by reorganizing and clarifying the feature richness of the software to improve access to and use of richly interconnected applications,” writes Nokia head of user experience Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson, the author of the S^4 User Interface Concept Proposal, who goes on to compare the UI design solution to rival operating systems:

“HTC Hero and Motorola Droid, both on Android, have a Homescreen with movable Homescreen widgets; however, each has one multi-panel homesceen page, whereas Symbian Foundation has independent unique pages

“iPhone has a flattened application library; however, it is displayed to the user exclusively as a manually organized grid, whereas the Symbian Foundation application library is an alpha-ordered list with multiple filtered views.”

The Nokia proposal is available for download now on the Symbian Developer Community forum, which also calls for questions, comments, suggestions and requests related to the document.

For more on the Symbian^4 proposal:– visit the Symbian Developer Community forum

Related articles:Nokia reaffirms commitment to SymbianNokia planning just one Maemo phone in 2010

Forum Nokia announced its Calling All Innovators 2010 developer challenge, promising $1 million for ideas that make a difference in people’s lives. This year’s edition of the Calling All Innovators event calls for application submissions across four categories:

Life Improvement: Apps that positively affect the daily lives of citizens in developing nations.

Entertainment: Music applications, multimedia and games.

Forum Nokia will team with Sesame Street producers Sesame Workshop on an education subcategory within the Life Improvement category to encourage developers to create applications that emphasize early literacy. Sesame Workshop will offer insight during the judging process and collaborate with select developers to further enhance relevant projects, encouraging programmers to create educational applications and even utilize the Sesame Street characters when appropriate.

More details on Calling All Innovators 2010 are available here. Submissions will be accepted between Feb. 1 and May 18.

Contending that the handset maker’s declining smartphone fortunes steadied over the second and third quarters of 2009, Nokia executive vice president and mobile phones unit head Rick Simonson says the introduction of Maemo and the stabilization of the Symbian operating system will lead the firm to smartphone segment recovery in 2010. In an interview with The Economic Times, Simonson says the worldwide perception of the Nokia brand is shaped by its struggles to secure a foothold in North America: “We shipped over 200 million smartphones last year and our strategy is volume driven,” Simonson said. “We have been stable in this segment and are trying to strengthen our position in the North American market. There is a lot of money to be made in the North American market and since we are not doing too well there, it has resulted in our stock performance–this issue has been played up and media coverage makes it appear it is the same across the world, which is not the case.”

Simonson goes on to state that Nokia’s resurgence will hinge on “redefining mobilization of all aspects of the office,” with a pronounced emphasis on context, citing its 2009 agreement with Microsoft to integrate Microsoft Office software into upcoming Symbian smartphones. “By 2011, our efforts will start producing results, as we will be at par with Apple and RIM in smartphones,” Simonson continues. “Not only we draw level with them, we will also win the war because, in addition to email, we will be adding content, chat, music, entertainment and several other features, which will soon become very critical for success of any company in this space. Another crucial factor that will play a large role in our success is that we have the power of an open operating system coupled with the open distribution model that is not restricted by geographical or technology boundaries. Look at our targets for any segment of our devices for 2010–they are all 2 to 10 times that of any of our competitors.”

Simonson adds that Nokia’s revival also will depend on its global scale and reach. “Through an open system we are encouraging innovation,” he says. “We are helping more people–I mean, developers who produce applications for our system–make money. They stand to make more money with us because, our OS is used not just by Nokia, but several other handset makers since it an open system. Next, their apps will be used across the world, as our reach is unmatched and therefore, we present them with the biggest audience to sell their products. An open system enables us to work faster at beating competition in the pockets we are not doing too well, by doing things differently.”